


yours, mine, ours

by theredhoodie



Category: American Gods (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe- No Supernatural, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2020-01-01 11:25:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18334151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theredhoodie/pseuds/theredhoodie
Summary: In which Laura owns a cat cafe and Sweeney owns a bar and they share a parking lot between their buildings.akaLaura is depressed and Sweeney falls in love with her pretty much immediately.





	yours, mine, ours

**Author's Note:**

> The thing about modern/no magic AUs is that…it can be fluffy and OOC as fuck and no one cares because they just came for the fluff so here’s this mess of a fic. Which may or may not have gods in it. That’s up for debate. ;)
> 
> I tried to add in as many nods toward the show as possible. Also thanks to Diva for reading this before ANYONE ELSE and finding my sloppy mistakes.

Laura woke up one morning, walked to her kitchen, made a cup of coffee and then glanced outside through the tall window next to the sink. Across the newly paved parking lot beside her building was another building which, for some time now, had been blissfully empty. But now, at six in the morning, there were too many trucks over on the other side. She spotted numerous men and some neon signs being handled inside.

"Dammit," she muttered when she saw a BUD LIGHT sign. "A fucking bar."

Just what she needed.

Dummy, her black and white cat, having just finished his breakfast, slithered between her legs and then jumped onto the sill. Laura scratched his head and lifted her mug to her face, breathing in the steam. "What do you think? Do you care?"

The cat just stared, unblinking.

She followed his gaze and found herself looking through the blindless window of the apartment level with hers, above the bar. A remarkably tall guy with honest-to-goodness orange hair stood there, chugging down a glass of water from a mason jar.

She blinked and kept staring until the man noticed her. Maybe he felt that tingling on the back of his neck of someone watching him, but he found her in the window, scratching Dummy's head between his ears, and just sort of half-waved and glared at the same time and then disappeared away from the window.

"Nice," she muttered, rolling her eyes and finishing her coffee. Dummy jumped down to the floor and she followed him through her place until she got to her bedroom. She got ready quickly and then headed down the stairs and outside, a big ring of keys hanging off a clip on her belt loop.

She glanced around at the parking lot and shook her head as the hammers started. "Great," she sighed before disappearing into the back room on the ground floor. It was the cat kennel, where she locked up the cats overnight so they wouldn't bring her health certificate down.

They weren't shoved into little cages, but the whole room served as their grounds, with toys and boxes and castles. She set out food for the ten of them and cleaned the litter boxes and unlocked the kitty doorflap so they could come back to do their business during open hours.

Once that was all done, she walked around to the cafe portion of her place. She started up the machines, got the coffee thermoses ready and took out some of the thawed danishes she served. They came from a bakery in town, and they really were a saving grace because she couldn't bake worth a damn.

Just as she was putting some half-baked scones on a baking sheet, there was a knock on the front door. Shoving the scones into the oven, Laura hurried over the door and opened it for her favorite employee, Bil, who was the only employee Laura had who stuck around for more than a few months.

"Did you see what's going on next door?" Bil asked, locking the door behind her as Laura hurried behind the counter to finish setting up before they opened for the day.

"Yep."

"Looks like a bar."

"Yep."

Bil tied her pale green apron around her abdomen and cocked an eyebrow. "And I can tell you're totally ecstatic about that!"

Laura let out a snort and shoved a filled coffee filter into place, setting the machine to drip. "Oh sure, because sharing a parking lot with a bar will be fun. And the fact that our hours will probably be opposite. Swear to God if I'm kept up every night…"

"Or, y'know, you could  _go over_ and enjoy yourself there every once and awhile. Maybe you'll get a discount for y'know, shared parking."

"No," Laura said flatly. She went over the list in her head before nodding and going to open the door, turning over the open sign. She turned to Bil and forced on a wide smile. "Let the customer's begin."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It took three weeks for her new neighbor to step foot in her cat filled, pastel painted kitty cafe,  _Feline Infused_. It was just before closing at six thirty and Laura was sweaty and tired and already calculating how much money she lost when one of the college kid baristas dropped an entire container of mocha powder on the floor when the door jingled open. Most of the cats were in the back room, eating their dinner. Bil was still here, wiping down tables.

Bil, who looked up and then up some more and finally cleared her throat loudly in Laura's direction. "Hey there," she said out loud.

Laura popped up from behind the counter. "We're about to close," she said, not looking up from the pad of paper in hand.

"Right. I read your door." The voice she heard definitely did not belong to the type of person who came into her cafe. They didn't get too many foreigners in this part of the country.

She looked up and blinked. She hadn't exactly been  _spying_  across the lot into his apartment, but she occasionally glanced in in the morning and saw flashes and snippets and this was certainly not the voice she'd tagged along to what she'd seen. "You're from next door," she said, voice still flat. The bar wasn't open yet so she'd yet to have to deal with late night music, but she was anticipating hating it already.

"I do. Opening up tonight, figured I'd invite you over." He noticed one of the last remaining cats in the place, a short haired tabby who'd been the runt of her litter. "You  _really_  keep cats in here?"

Laura placed her hands on her hips. "Yes. You want one?"

"What?"

"They're all up for adoption. Do you want a cat?"

Behind him, Bil gestured wildly with her hands in all ways to tell Laura that she was going about this all wrong.

Laura didn't listen. "Otherwise, we're closing. So if you could get out…"

"Huh." He took a step back, surveyed her in her entire wrecked state and seemed to make a decision about her just then there. He licked his lips and rubbed his face and nodded. "I  _was_  gonna offer you free beers for the night but since you're being pretty fucking rude, I recant that offer." He gave Bil a nod on his way out, because  _she_  hadn't been rude to him.

"Laura!" Bil exclaimed once the door closed behind him. "That was so stupid."

Laura huffed and locked the door quickly, not bothering to glance outside before doing so. "I'm tired and I just want to sleep."

"So you turn down the hot…Scottish? English? Whatever, fucking dude offering free booze?" She placed her hands on her hips much sassier than Laura had earlier. "Maybe I can still get those free beers." She pulled off her apron and her hat and fixed up her hair and turned to Laura. "You sure you don't want to come?"

"Have fun," Laura sighed. And she tried to mean it. Instead, she shut off the lights and locked the cats in the kennel and walked upstairs to bury herself in wine and leftovers and blankets, Dummy purring like a kitten at her side.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The music didn't bother her as much as she thought. It wasn't like he was running a club or a rave. But the worst part was hearing the drunken people stumbling to their cars, talking too loud and reminding her of college years, which were not a fun time for her after sophomore year.

She started wearing earplugs to bed but they gave her a headache when she woke up in the morning, so instead she'd play music all night, just loud enough to drown out the voices. Ironic, she knew that, but it was the only way for her to not get startled awake at three in the morning by some drunk dude falling on his face in the parking lot.

"C'mon, it's  _fun_ ," Bil insisted one day, a couple weeks later. Laura had refused to go over to the bar to apologize, and she and the—according to Bil's intel—Irishman shared a number of middle fingers and childish exchanges through their kitchen windows.

"It's only fun because it's new," Laura insisted, scrubbing a stubborn stain on the counter. "Give it a few months and it'll be as obsolete as any other bar in town. College kids will trickle in and keep him in business but he'll need a gimmick to keep things going."

"He does. The whole Irish thing."

Laura shook her head. "C'mon. You're just saying this because you're sleeping with him, right?"

Bil blinked. "I am not."

"Really?"

"I don't sleep with  _every_  person I lay eyes on. I have some standards."

"And your standards don't include the the hot Irishman? Your words, not mine, Bils," Laura pointed out.

Bil shrugged and hung up her apron. "Look, I have a pretty good thing going right now with someone actually."

"Nancy?"

"Nancy," Bil nodded, washed her hands in the sink and running her hands over her hair, smoothed over her scalp. "Makes me wanna be monogamous for just a little while."

"Wow. Never thought I'd hear the words."

Bil liked sex the way most people liked a nice warm cup of coffee every morning. Laura liked sex too…but mostly just to eat up time, it was never for the pure pleasure of it. Laura envied that and a lot of things about Bil.

"C'mon, Laura. Just come out…for one night. It won't hurt. It's not like you two are mortal enemies or anything."

Laura's mouth twitched up into a smile at the thought of having an arch nemesis. It was amusing. "Fine. But only because it's Tuesday and the place won't be packed." Laura liked her space; she wasn't a fan of being stuffed into a sardine can.

Bil grinned, big and wide and chased Laura up the stairs to spend a good thirty minutes turning down every outfit Laura pulled from the closet. Eventually, Laura said fuck it and just pulled on a random t-shirt and jeans and boots and let Bil dab lipstick on her mouth and fix some of her curls.

"Why do I get the feeling you're setting me up on a blind date?" Laura bemoaned as they walked outside and across the parking lot. It was after seven and almost too early for most bars to be open, but this place was.

She squinted up at the sign above the door, proclaiming the place  _The Lucky Coin._ "Huh," she muttered before Bil took her hand and pulled her inside.

It was just like any other bar in any movie ever, all dark wood and curved bar counter and tables around the edges and music playing. A small, empty stage for live music in the corner. The only thing missing was a layer of dust or dirt. There were already a number of people inside.

Bil dragged her to the bar and they sat on refurbished bar stools. There was a hint of Irish in just about every corner, but it was subtle. It didn't scream an Irish pub, and Laura didn't actually hate it all that much.

"Is that a smile I see?" Bil asked, bumping shoulders with the smaller woman.

Laura rolled her eyes. "Shut up." She crossed her arms and leaned against the bar,  _deciding_ , when big, tall and ginger himself walked out of a back room and slid behind the bar.

"Evening, Bil," he said, already making up a drink to place in front of the woman in question. He glanced at Laura and waited.

Bil kicked Laura's ankle. Laura sighed. "Sorry about before," she said, trying really hard to mean it. But it'd been a week, maybe two, since  _the day_  and she couldn't even remember what was up with her on such an occasion. "It was a long day."

He chewed on that for a minute before he reached around and popped open a beer, placing it in front of her. "First one's free."

"Thanks."

"It's Sweeney," he said.

It took her a minute to realize he was introducing himself. "Oh…" She choked down half a sip of beer. "Laura McCabe."

"Good to meet you. Officially. When you're not about to rip my head off."

Laura didn't so much as smile but put her lips together in a not-frown. "I um...also wanted to ask you something."

He leaned against the bar. And she thought, for a moment, that  _damn_  he was tall and his arms were definitely about as long as she was tall and how could anyone legitimately be so fucking large? "Shoot."

"Can you... _please_  clean up the glass in the lot at night or in the mornings? Or at least after the weekends. Because I just paid for the repaving and now there's broken bottles everywhere." She wasn't entirely sure if she took a pause for breaths, but she got the words out and met his eye, standing—sitting—her ground.

He blinked at her and look at Bil and then back to Laura. "Sure," he said, though his words screamed animosity and annoyance.

He left, giving Bil a big smile and walking to the other end of the bar.

"God that was horrible," Bil muttered, leaning close to Laura. "When is the last time you got laid? You're rusty as hell. Cobwebs, everywhere."

"I'm not looking to get laid."

Bil laughed. "Oh…you're being serious."

"Yep." Laura hadn't ever fully come clean about why she ended up here, after spending her whole life a few hours away in Eagle Point. She didn't tell Bil that she'd been sleeping with her best friend's husband, or that they were found out and she was basically shunned by the entire town. She'd moved to get away, to figure her shit out. Because the kicker was…the sex wasn't even the sort of sex that someone should ruin a friendship and marriage over. It was just…easy and gave her something to do.

Which fucking sucked and so she moved and started over here. Except starting over involved her living in a funk, alone in her place for a few years now, nothing but cats for company. She was an honest-to-god fucking cat lady.

Bil finished her drink and shrugged. "Well, you could always start."

"I'd be happy with just not getting flipped off every morning when I walk into my kitchen." And then, of course, she  _had_  to explain the fact that the apartment above the bar matched the one in her building and their kitchens could easily be seen across the parking lot.

"That is some romcom, John Hughes shit," Bil chuckled, after Sweeney had come and gone with fresh drinks for them both.

Laura snorted. "Doubtful."

They stayed and drank and Laura got pretty drunk pretty fast before nine o'clock considering she hadn't eaten until lunch and she was a tiny little thing. Eventually, Bil decided it was time to go and kept a firm grasp on Laura's shoulders when she stumbled off the stool.

"Damn, girl, you're the lightest lightweight ever," Bil mused.

"Think you two can make it across the lot?" Sweeney asked, appearing out of nowhere.

Laura, amid a brain swirling around with alcohol lowering her inhibitions, allowed herself to check him out and note how tall he was—too tall—and how red his hair was—it was actually pretty nice—also his shoulders were pretty damn broad and she wondered how easily he could pick her up…

"I think we've got it," Bil said, which didn't seem too Bil-like to Laura but she was too busy imagining what Sweeney's hands would feel like.

"You know," Laura said, before she could be dragged on swaying legs outside, "you should really get blinds for your kitchen."

Sweeney arched his eyebrows. "Maybe you should stop looking in my windows, Peeping Tom."

She laughed a little bit. "You're always looking back," she said, feeling a bit more like her old self than she had in a long time.

His smile was a little wicked.

Bil laughed loudly and spun Laura around. " _O-kay_. See you later!" And rushed Laura out of the bar and into the cool night.

"Why'd you do that? I thought you  _wanted_  me to get laid."

"Not like that. Not like this," Bil insisted, guiding Laura through the maze of cars in the parking lot.

Laura sighed and shoved clumsy hands through her hair and let Bil give her water and make her eat some instant rice to absorb some alcohol in her stomach and eventually put her to bed.

She woke up the next morning with a hangover like a bomb went off in her brain, but somehow managed to get herself moving to open the cafe. She spent the first hour in the back room, petting a cat and drinking coffee until she felt like she could stand and work.

Lunch rolled around and she stepped out for a cigarette and some aspirin, leaning against the side of her building and trying very hard not to squint across the lot at  _The Lucky Coin._ At the very end of her break, Sweeney drove up and got out of his truck. He caught her eye and waved a long, thin box at her. She saw, for a moment, that it was a set of blinds.

She chuckled, put out her cigarette on the brick and tossed it into the trash bin next to the door before walking back inside.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Laura tried really hard to stay through the whole movie, she really did. Salim was one of her few friends in this new life she'd created for herself, and he'd already adopted two cats from her cafe.

So of course, when his boyfriend dipped out due to work, she took his ticket and went to the movies with Salim. But it was…a happy movie. One that made Laura's heart twist and hurt because…well, she couldn't relate to it. She wanted to be able to, but watching actors thirty feet tall smile and be happy and find meaning in their lives was actually physically  _painful_.

She left halfway through, under the impression that she'd return after taking a breather and maybe sucking down a cigarette just outside the exit.

And she did do that, but a couple drags in, she started walking, tugging her thin red jacket around her shoulders. It was nearly eleven and the town was deathly quiet as she walked a good five miles back to her place, her phone turned off.

She walked and smoked and was left alone with her thoughts, which was, at this time, not really what she should have been doing. She got home eventually, almost two hours later, walking past  _The Lucky Coin_  which was quiet for a Friday night but she didn't stop in. She just walked across the lot and up to her place.

After feeding Dummy some treats, brushing her teeth and hair on autopilot, she purposefully left her phone off and in the kitchen and sat in the chair next to the window.

It crawled toward four in the morning and the parking lot was quiet. Everyone had spent their evening traveling two cities over for a football game. Laura got up after doing nothing but chain smoking and petting Dummy for hours, and walked up the emergency stairs to the roof. It was cold and her clothes were thin. She lit the last cigarette from her pack and slowly walked toward the edge of the roof until her bare feet were up on the slight brick barricade, just three bricks high that would stop no one from falling off.

She stood there and smoked down to the filter and tilted her head up to the night sky, muted by light pollution. She stood there for a long time, wondering who would feed the cats and if maybe she should have written a note somewhere for someone.

"You all right?"

The voice startled her, almost making her lose balance and she looked down. Sweeney stood there, in an empty parking lot, cigarette smoke curling up around his face.

"I'm fine," she said, that ingrained, automatic response. "Please go away."

He didn't. "Sure you are. That's why you're standing on your roof at 4AM." He flicked the remnants of his cigarette aside. "There're easier ways to do it. Sleeping pills. Turn on the stove while you sleep. Park a car in a garage. You jump or fall and you could just end up with a broken leg or back." He skipped the more gruesome options involving guns or razor blades.

Laura closed her eyes and breathed, tried to remember what it felt like to be alive. When was the last time she felt like the coldness around her heart was lifted? She let out a few shaky breaths before she looked down at his shadowy face. "You know something about that?"

"I know what I see." He paused and lit another cigarette and she shivered. "Bar's empty. Why don't you come over?"

Well, she certainly couldn't throw herself off the roof  _now_ , not with an audience. She said nothing but she did get down off the bricks and walk back through the stairway to her place, where Dummy was meowing like he was pissed at her, knowing what she was going to do. She pet him and pulled on jeans and tugged on a zip-up hoodie that was so old she'd forgotten from which high school boyfriend she'd stolen it from. She put on socks, her toes freezing, and sneakers and poked her head outside.

Sweeney was still standing there, not far from her door. He said nothing when she came out and shoved the door shut, just nodded and started toward his bar, where she followed, wrapping her arms around her middle.

He was right though, there wasn't a soul in his bar. The music wasn't even playing.

She crawled onto a stool and he went behind the bar.

"Pick your poison," he said.

"Vodka's fine."

Sweeney set the glass on the bar and filled it halfway and she grabbed it before he could even ask if she wanted a mixer for it.

She gulped down a mouthful and made a face. "Is this the part where I spill my guts to you because you're the bartender and I'm the emotionally distraught customer?"

He shrugged. "Dunno. You want to talk about what you were doing up there on the roof?"

"Contemplating."

"Contemplating what?"

"Life. Wondering what it would be like to feel things again."

He said nothing but grabbed himself a beer and drank, the bar countertop between them.

"You think life's gonna be some big grand shit once you graduate college but mine has just been…actual shit."

"Even with all those cats of yours?"

She laughed though it was dry and humorless. She swirled the alcohol around in the glass. "Even with all my cats."

"When's the last time you felt happy?"

Laura looked up and frowned. It wasn't like it was a question out of the blue considering the conversation, but it wasn't the sort of thing she'd thought about. She was too focused on just going through the motions, feeling numb and trying to chase the feeling of being alive. "I…" she started and stopped until she felt a flicker of emotion in the back of her head. "I used to live in Eagle Point, like seven hours east of here. I worked at a casino as a dealer. I…I liked doing that."

"Ah," he chuckled. "Poker. All right. Why'd you stop? Why  _the cats_?"

"Do you hate cats or something?"

"No."

He didn't elaborate so she just sighed and leaned against the bar, head in hand and did just what she didn't want, which was to lay out her life story on the willing ear of a bartender. God, she never wanted to be this cliche again.

"I burned all the bridges back to my hometown so I left. And there's no casino out here. And I like cats. I found Dummy—"

"Dummy?"

"My cat. The one that lives with me."

"You named your cat Dummy."

"He doesn't know what it means. Anyway, I found him and I just…it just sort of happened. I like cats but it…" She took another drink. "I'm just fucking exhausted from pretending to care."

"Hmmm." Sweeney tilted his beer back to finish it off and then went searching around in nooks and crannies until, he popped up and slid a deck of well worn cards toward her. "Let's see it then."

Laura tilted her head to the side. "Are you serious?" He nodded, crossing his arms and leaning back, waiting. Shaking her head, she downed the last of the vodka in the glass and reached for the cards.

She tapped them out into her hands, removed the jokers and cleared the counter in front of her. She shuffled them simply at first, the motions familiar. Her muscles warmed up and she soon spread them out and flipped cards and ended up feeling, surprisingly, a little bit better.

"I thought you were just fucking with me but you're pretty good at that," Sweeney said, watching cards fall from one hand to the other.

Honestly, she was just happy that, when the vodka hit her like a jolt to the system, she didn't start a game of 52 card pickup and instead clapped the cards together between her hands and placed them down on the bar.

"Thank you," she said, bowing her head a little and leaning against the bar again, her arms crossed in front of her. "Have you ever fucked up something so bad that you can't get away from it?"

He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly before nodding. "Yeah. Been there, done that."

"And yet you're not trying to jump off any roofs."

"That's not really in me. I'm always too busy saving my own ass to want to end it all."

Laura bit her lips and took a good long look at him. There was…just something about him that was quiet and screamed for attention at the same time. Or maybe that was the vodka talking. "What's that?" she asked finally, eyes having slid to the picture frame above the back of the bar. Inside there was no photo, but a shining piece of gold.

"My lucky coin," he said, turning around and taking it easily off the wall despite how high up it was. He flipped the frame over and opened up the back, pulling the golden coin out and holding it up in front of her.

"Is it real?"

"Far as I know."

She reached for it, tilting her head to see the design. He let her have it and she turned it around in her hands. Sun on one side, squarish knots on the other. She kept turning it around and around, as if searching for the answers of the universe on its surface. "Is this a family heirloom or something?" she asked, glancing up and blinking, startled.

Sweeney was leaning against the bar too, his face close, his breath on her hands. "Or something," he said. He held out a palm and she took her time dropping it there. "You ever do card tricks?"

"Like magic tricks?" she asked, feeling the warm fuzz from the sharp liquor buzzing through her system.

"Yeah."

"No. I mean, I probably could. Never really tried. Do you think I'm magician material?"

"I think…you're a lot of things but probably not a magician."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Do you do coin tricks?"

"I know a couple." He flipped the coin, heavy and ancient, into the air, where it seemingly disappeared. Laura frowned and watched him flip his hand over and reveal the coin between his index and middle finger.

"I'm half-way drunk so that could be the worst fucking trick in the book and I wouldn't know," she said, and, before losing her nerve, she pushed herself over the bar and kissed him, short and sweet, on the lips. "Thank you."

He blinked and gave her a small smile. "You're welcome."

She nodded, hesitated, nodded again and hopped off the stool, steadying herself against the bar. "I should get back. I have to open my place in like…an hour."

He reached over and took her hand, pressing the coin there into her palm. "Keep this. Bring it back tomorrow."

She frowned, but accepted the odd gift. She gave him a depressed girl's smile and slowly walked out into the waking morning.

When she finally got to her place, she turned on her phone. She sent a quick apology text to Salim with a promise to call him later, and then she left a message for Bil, asking her to open up without her.

And then, after stripping out of her chilly night clothes, she fell to bed, sparkling coin still in her fist, tucked under her pillow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She had a dream that she knew wasn't a dream, but she also didn't know it wasn't a dream at the same time. It felt like…a memory, something she should know but didn't. Something that surprised her but felt familiar all the same.

There were sights and sounds that were alien but then were as familiar as her own face. Except, her face wasn't really her face. Her air was all pushed up in her chest by a corset of bone and fabric and there was an overwhelming feeling of holding her breath the entire time.

She ran along green cliffs as a child, ate meals out of wooden bowls, always squirreled away bits of bread for the fairy folk and the people of the mounds who protected trees and gave their favors to those who believed in them.

She remembered an entire life, filled with survival and pickpocketing and greedy men and children and belief. And then…she died, but it was nice and she wasn't afraid and she went off to…somewhere with a man who looked a lot like…

Laura gasped awake as if from a nightmare, sitting up and squinting against the midday sun. She lifted a hand and pressed it against her fast beating heart, beating like it had just been kickstarted. She gulped for air and slowly opened her eyes.

She was in her apartment, Dummy was sleeping on the sun soaked windowsill and…she frowned and looked down at her hand. An old, gold coin lay there in her palm.

"What the fuck," she muttered to no one, still rubbing her chest as her heart died down to a resting rate that allowed her to  _breathe_.

Having apparently held onto the coin all night, she crawled out of bed, a frown on her face. She tried to wrap her head around her dream, wondering what old timey movies she'd seen lately—not many—and why it felt so real. Eventually, she put the coin down to shower and then make coffee and check her phone.

She curled up in her favorite chair in the kitchen and talked to Salim for an hour, running her thumb over the design on Sweeney's coin the whole time. Once her friend was pacified and believed her when she said she was doing better, she got her things together, slipped the coin into her jeans and walked down to check on the cafe.

It was that after-lunch rush, but Bil had things under control and was ordering around the teens like a film director. Laura stepped out into the lot and squinted under the sun.

Last night felt so far away, even as she paused to look up at the roof, two stories up. Her heart had shaken off its sluggishness, and honestly she hadn't felt this calm in a long time.

She'd forgotten that there was a difference between numb and calm.

 _The Lucky Coin_  was all closed up, so she went around to the side and pulled open the screen door and walked quietly up the steps at the back of the building, leading to the second floor apartment.

She could have totally have waited until tonight to bring the coin back, but something compelled her here. She barely hesitated before knocking loudly on the door. She rocked back on her heels as she waited until the door was quickly pulled open.

"Hey," she said.

"Hi," Sweeney said, looking a lot more tired than she felt. She also definitely noted the fact that he was wearing a sleeveless shirt and his arms were pretty much as nice as she'd imagined and she found the suspenders slung over his shoulders pretty damn sexy. And his hair was a delightful mess.

Laura dug the coin from her pocket and held it out to him. "This is yours."

"That it is." He took it, warm from her body heat, and slipped it into his pocket.

She had a number of questions but didn't know how to ask them, starting and stopping too many times before she settled on one. "Why did you give that to me? Is it like a magic coin or something?"

"Why? Did it turn into a prince when you kissed it?"

"I didn't…"

A grin slowly made its way onto his face.

She scowled, though it was pretty hard to do when he looked like  _that_. "Very funny. I'm being serious. Because…I feel better. Like, better than better considering where my head was yesterday."

"Do you really need answers for everything? Because maybe you should just take it for what it was and be glad you don't feel like shit anymore."

"Wow. That was… _so_ inspiring," she said the last words flatly. Laura bit her bottom lip and crossed her arms and waited.

He broke the silence. "You wanna get breakfast with me?"

She didn't even correct him in saying it was nearly two in the afternoon and just said, "Okay" instead.

He ducked inside to grab a collared shirt and a denim coat. She poked her head inside like a snoop and noticed an unopened box on the counter.

"Hey," she said, when he came back into view. "You never put up your blinds."

"You're just noticing this now?"

No, she'd noticed. She'd definitely noticed that she found herself peering into his kitchen whenever she wasn't working.

"Maybe I just like being spied on, Laura McCabe," he said, using her name like it meant more than just something she was called.

She swallowed hard and walked down the stairs, leaving him to lock his door and follow her. They walked down the street and sat at a diner and ordered breakfast food in droves and drank coffee and talked around any subject too dark for the sun shining above.

"What do you believe in?" she asked, once she'd eaten her weight in pancakes and enjoying every second of it.

"Kind of a broad topic there."

"I mean…do you think souls are reborn into new bodies? That people can be connected together without realizing it?"

"Like fate?"

"Sure. If you wanna call it that."

"Do you?"

She pursed her lips. "I didn't believe in much of anything until…" She shook her head. "It's fucking stupid. And are you one thousand percent positive that coin you have isn't magic?"

Sweeney sat back and laughed and sipped coffee from a mug that looked childish in his big hands. "It could be, if you really need an answer."

"Because I…shit, I had this stupid dream and it felt more like memories than a dream. I don't…really know what to do with it."

"Pretty sure it was just a dream."

"Then why…" She trailed off because there was no way in fucking hell she was going to finish that sentence out loud. She was not in some scripted TV show soap opera where saying something like "why do I feel so connected to you?" was totally normal. This was the realest of real worlds, which was why she was so confused as to how she suddenly felt rejuvenated. It wasn't realistic for a single conversation over a bar could completely cure her of her lethargy and depression yet she felt like she'd just woken up from a long sleep and was finally realizing that the world was still going on around her.

And when she looked at Sweeney across the table, the end of her dream replayed in her head of him, or his face at least, coming up to take her away.

"Look," he said, leaning forward a bit. "I'm no psychiatrist but maybe you just need to fucking  _live_  to feel alive."

"Maybe."

"You should come by more. Bring your friends. Get drunk. Figure your shit out." He stood up and tossed down money to pay for both of them and she was glad since she'd left everything but his coin in her apartment.

"I think I can do that," Laura said, getting to her feet and following him out. "And don't people say that bartenders are basically free psychiatrists anyway?"

"I wouldn't hold a candle to my life advice there, love," he chuckled.

They walked all the way back to his bar, where he didn't even try to kiss her or anything, but went inside to replace the coin above the bar. Laura continued down the road to  _Feline Infusion_  and helped out during the last few hours.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Time was a funny thing. It could go real fast or real slow and sometimes it just passed without giving it much thought.

Months slipped away and Laura did, in fact, spend more time at  _The Lucky Coin_  and more time with her friends. And she even poured her heart out to a support group in the next town over until she felt like she was able to forgive herself and do what Sweeney said, which was…to just live.

The future was uncertain, but she found herself planning and looking forward to a future, which was just about as close to feeling happy as she'd been in years.

Summer brought along balmy nights and even more reason to drink, because was there anything better than a cold beer to stave off the heat? (Yes, there was, but Laura was pretty fond of drinking now that it didn't make her feel like she was drowning.)

Bil was out with her tonight and they'd actually taken the time to get dressed up, which was a surprise for Laura, though not much for Bil. Bil dressed in all red and invited Nancy along, who was, contrary to the name, a sharp dressed man and not a white woman from the 1970s. Laura let Bil dress her, which resulted in a short skirt, skinny heels and a tanktop straight out of 2001 with tiny snaps down the front.

It was hot as hell in the bar, and the live band was loud as fuck and the building could barely contain the number of drunken bodies within its walls. Sweeney even had a second person working the bar tonight.

Laura found herself sipping a beer and shouting over the music to Bil and Nancy, who kept slipping away to dance to the band, leaving her standing mostly on her own near the door and front window.

"Hey there!" a voice said over the music. She twisted around to find herself looking at an unfamiliar face. An attractive unfamiliar face, but she didn't recognize him from the usual crowd.

"Hi!" she yelled back. "Do I know you?"

"I'm just passing through," he said during a momentary quiet part of a song. "Ended up here."

"Well then…welcome. I'm Laura."

"Shadow," he got out, before the music started again.

Laura didn't very much care for yelling all night, but she did it anyway, because this Shadow guy was…well he was like a new toy and she most definitely spotted Sweeney looking at her throughout the night so she decided to turn this into a game.

She and Shadow stood close by the cool window and yelled over songs and he made her laugh and she talked about nothing whatsoever. She laughed and touched his arms and shoulders and thought perhaps bringing him home with her would be something she could do.

Bil reached Laura just before Sweeney did, getting her attention and putting her conversation with Shadow to a stuttering halt. "Incoming," the taller woman whispered.

Laura twisted around just in time for Sweeney to swoop down and move her away from the mysterious stranger. "Come with me," he said.

"What for?" She let out a small laugh. He found her hand and her stomach flipped and she found herself cornered in the dark end of the bar.

"You don't know?"

Laura's back was to the wall and she tilted her head back. "No," she said with a sly grin. "Maybe." She reached up and smoothed down the crinkled corner of his collar. "Why don't you tell me?"

He shook his head and ran his hand down her face, her neck. "You're flirting with some other man, in my bar."

"Was I?"

"Woman...you are something else."

"Don't I know it." She pushed herself up as tall as she could, hands resting against his chest. "Are you jealous?"

"Yes."

She smiled and took his hand and they slipped out through the delivery door and into the night. "I had to be sure," she said, walking backward, which was a feat since she was a little tipsy and she didn't often wear heels, but she managed it without falling flat on her ass.

"Sure about what?"

"That you weren't just feeling sorry for me," she said, reaching the door leading to the stairs to his place. She reached around behind her for the handle. "I'm over pity fucks."

"You won't find that here, love."

And she believed him, the look in his eyes was enough to send shivers down her spine. She cracked open the door and took two steps before his hands were on her hips and he spun her around to kiss him.

Laura was not above thinking about fireworks and electricity when it came to his mouth on hers and his arms pulling her toward him. God, this was nothing like Robbie or the handful of other guys she's slept with since.

This was totally and embarrassingly intense.

She gripped his shoulders and tried to hide a moan when he dragged his fingertips down her spine. She gasped out and he kissed down her neck.

"You know," he said, voice muffled against her skin, "sometimes I wish I could see into your bedroom instead of your kitchen."

"Of course you do," she laughed a little, arching her back and sliding her fingers through his hair. "Does it make you hard thinking of me all alone and just out of reach?"

"Often," he said in a low growl before lifting her up and carrying her up the stairs amongst offhanded peals of laughter from her.

He set her down on the counter in the kitchen and she wrapped her legs around his hips and worked on his shirt buttons with her head nestled between his hands and his hungry mouth on hers.

Laura pushed his shirt from his shoulders and ran her hands along his arms and to his hair. He kissed her throat and below her ear and she sank blunt nails into his skin and moaned out as his hands roamed over her torso, unsnapping buttons on her shirt.

"Oh, we should…take our time," she panted out before he planted a kiss on her lips.

"Feeling alive?" he asked, sliding his hand into her shirt, flesh against flesh, rough thumb skimming over a nipple.

She nodded with a flash of a smile. "Fuck yes. I want to feel  _everything_."

He grinned that wicked grin and kissed her hard, parting her lips with his tongue and pulling her closer with his hands sturdy on her hips. Her skirt hiked up her thighs and she let her arms fall around his neck, savoring every tingling touch and wave of adrenaline and dopamine taking her higher and higher.

His hand held the back of her neck and his other trailed along from knee to inner thigh, making her sigh and send her own kisses trailing down his neck and to his shoulder, interrupted only by the shirt he was still wearing.

"You don't have your blinds up," she said, rather offhandedly. Through his window, her own apartment was scarcely lit except the dim light from the bathroom she kept on for Dummy that you could barely see.

"That's your biggest concern right now?"

His hand rested against her inner thigh and Laura could feel herself getting wetter and more wanting by the second so maybe he had a point. She shook her head and said, "You're right," before kissing him, pulling his torso close. "Touch me."

He did,  _slowly_  because she'd insisted, circling his fingers across the fabric of her second best pair of panties—according to Bil, but Laura highly doubted Sweeney, or anyone, cared what kind she'd wear since they wouldn't be staying put for that long.

He teased her just long enough for her to grow impatient before pushing past the fabric and sliding a finger inside of her. She gasped out and wished he were wearing fewer clothes but reminding herself she asked for this before she submitted, resting her head against his shoulder and biting down just hard enough when he stroked and moved.

She hadn't felt truly pleasurable sex in…so fucking long, she'd forgotten how it made her body feel light and hot and trembly. She would have fallen off the counter if he didn't hold onto her and let her gasp out encouragements.

"You like that, love?"

"Yes, fuck, yes, keep going," she moaned out, her entire body feeling ready to burst. He did, hand on the small of her back to keep her steady, leaning her back and kissing her until she came, biting his lower lip in the process and squeezing his shoulders until her body settled down.

"Ow," he said, halfheartedly, removing his hand from between her legs. "Are you gonna keep biting me?"

She shrugged innocently, trying to catch her breath. "Probably," she said with a shrug, darting forward to kiss him before she jumped off the counter onto wobbly legs. She leaned against the counter and removed her heels for fear of fucking up her ankles before. "Is that bad?"

"I don't hate it."

She laughed a little and realized that she was even shorter than she realized now that she was in flat feet. "Fuck," she muttered. "Okay, take off your shirt and pick me up again."

He smiled a little bit, definitely  _not_  hating being told what to do, and did just that. Shirt off, revealing a pretty damn nice body under there and then she was in his arms again, legs around his hips and his hands in her hair and attempting to undo the rest of the snaps of her shirt.

He carried her through the apartment, which, she noticed, was identical to how hers was set up only it had a lot less stuff in it and housed no cats.

He set her down on the bed, where she was perfectly his height, standing on the end and she took off her shirt and pushed away her skirt and panties, having no qualms with being naked in front of anyone ever. It was like that childhood modesty never really dug itself deep in her psyche.

So she stood on the bed and pressed her body against his torso and kissed him while his hands ran along her back, her ass, her thighs. Her body still thrummed from the kitchen, her skin hot to the touch.

"Now your turn," she said against his lips, before instructing him to get onto the bed. He shed his boots and his remaining clothes and god  _damn_  was he an incredibly sexy man. Laura bit down on her lower lip and crawled onto the bed, running her hands down his chest, lifting his hands to her breasts and straddling him. She leaned down and kissed him, long and slow with full, bruised lips until she slipped away, leaving him with his eyes closed and hands holding the air where she used to be.

She moved down the bed and reached for him, running her thumb over the engorged head and moving her other hand down the shaft.

"Good fucking god," he moaned out as she stroked him and then took his cock in her mouth and slid her tongue over his heated flesh. "Jesus Christ, woman." He slapped a hand over his face and reached down to find any part of her to touch.

Laura sat back, hand still gripping him. "Tapping out already?"

"Unless you want this over real quick," he said with a heady grin.

She shrugged and went back to straddling him, leaning down to kiss him before she settled back and took him inside of her. She gasped out and he muttered out profanity. Moving her hips, she took her time and dug her nails into his chest for leverage. His hands found her breasts and soon her hands found his, fingers laced together, steadying her as she moved and rocked.

Everything was heightened for her, body already at the ready, and god damn did it feel fucking amazing. She was entirely focused on the strain in his face and the feel of his hips starting to meet hers and she most fucking definitely felt alive.

"Oh, come on, babe," she taunted, just seconds before he sat up and grabbed her and crushed her to his chest and moved her faster and harder than she'd been able until he came to a shuddering climax, hands digging into her hips and head buried in her chest.

Both of them were sweaty messes and she ran her hands through his hair and kissed his temple and laughed a little bit when he laughed and flopped back down onto the mattress, rubbing a hand over his face.

"You certainly know your shit," he said, waving a hand before letting his arm flop back against the blanket.

Laura narrowed her eyes and pinched his nipple in retaliation.

"Hey! I meant that as a compliment." Sweeney glared at her and then grabbed her wrists, pressing his thumbs to the inside of them, where he could feel her pulse going a mile a minute.

She felt blissfully  _alive_  and so she shrugged a shoulder and smiled a little. "You're not so bad yourself." She swooped down and kissed him before crawling off the bed and walking to the bathroom and jumping into the shower without a word. She rinsed off the sweat and cum but held onto the warm, alive feeling.

"You better not be asleep," she yelled out into the bedroom as she dried off with a towel from the closet and then walked back into the room.

"Nope," Sweeney said, though he hadn't moved from his spot.

She walked by the bed to grab her clothes, pausing to train her fingers across his upturned palm. She moved away before he could snatch her hand and pull her back down to the bed.

Laura dressed herself in shirt and skirt, shoving the panties in her pocket and searching through his kitchen while he showered. By the time he came out in nothing but underwear, she was sitting on the counter, drinking a beer and relaxing back against a cabinet.

"Hi," she said, after he got himself a beer and settled himself lightly between her knees.

"Hi," he said, before taking a sip.

"I think we can make this work," Laura said, before she lost her nerve.

He arched his eyebrows. "Why's that?"

"Because sex hasn't felt that good since I was in college. And because something  _definitely_ fucking happened when you lent me your coin. And...because you stopped me from trying to kill myself," she added, her words getting softer and smaller as she went.

His free hand, resting on her knee, moved to her face, fingers sliding through damp hair, thumb sweeping across her cheek. His face was soft and vulnerable as hell and it made her heart jump in her chest.

"And I think maybe we're actually fated, or some shit," she said before he could say anything. She ran small, cool fingertips down his chest, over the tiny half-moon indents from her nails.

"Romantically said," he deadpanned, before kissing her until she couldn't breathe. "I can live with that."

She put aside her beer and rested both of her hands on either side of his torso, his skin still hot to the touch. "You'll never catch me saying this again, but I think you make me want to live again," she said, a rosey hint of embarrassment tinging her cheeks.

He gave her a pretty, genuine smile and kissed her forehead before disappearing, bringing his beer with him. He returned in a minute or two, fully dressed, much to her disappointment. "Hey, I've still got a business to run," he explained in response to her pout.

"I know, I know," she waved a hand and finished her beer too. She pulled on her heels and told herself to definitely not drink anymore if she didn't want to break an ankle, and the two of them made their way outside. The air felt nice, refreshing.

Sweeney slipped his hand around the back of her neck, in a gentle but possessive way that Laura was not opposed to. She smiled softly at the ground.

"So next time," he said, pausing before they got to  _The Lucky Coin_. "Yours," he pointed to her dim apartment, "mine," jerked a thumb over his shoulder, "our ours?" he gestured to the whole parking lot.

Laura scoffed and gave him a little shove. "I'm not having sex with you in a parking lot. Besides, I'm still pissed that you never clean the glass from all your drunkards and  _my_  customers complain about it in the morning."

"I do!" he insisted, reaching for the delivery door handle. "Sometimes there's just more on the ground that gets missed."

She narrowed her eyes at him but allowed him to open the door for her, blasting them both back a step by the loud finale by the band. She stepped in, determined just to find Bil and Nancy and take her leave.

Sweeney slipped by her, briefly putting his hands on her shoulders as he passed, disappearing behind the bar to fill orders and talk shit with the customers, as he was wont to do. Laura sighed and rubbed the side of her nose, fully aware of her damp hair and double checking the snaps on her shirt before weaving through the crowd to find her friends.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bil never let her live it down. She called herself a self-proclaimed matchmaker and insisted she had cosmically altered the universe to allow Sweeney and Laura to meet. Laura just rolled her eyes at that and continued to work on some last minute adoption paperwork for someone coming back the next day to take home the tabby runt who had, for some reason, stuck around for eight whole months, nearly as long as  _The Lucky Coin_  had been open.

"It wasn't you, but take the credit. I don't care. I'm not the universe," Laura said with a chuckle and shook her head, bending over the papers and making sure everything was filled in.

"Was it good?"

"What do you think, Bils?"

"Well, he didn't have a broken nose after, so I'm guessing...good?" Bil smiled and twirled her work hat on her index finger.

"Check," Laura said, tapping the air with the end of her pen. She gave the paper one more look before tucking it into the file to handle in the afternoon when the adopters showed up. She stood and faced her friend, pulling her hair out of its tie and scratching her scalp. "You did good, bringing me over there months ago."

"I try," Bil said, wiping invisible dirt off her shoulder.

"He um...he came by one night after that, y'know, when I was...frankly I was feeling really low and I was up on the roof."

Bil's face fell to something serious. "Why were you on the roof, Laura?"

"Because...things happened to me and I didn't want to face another day of it."

"Shit, sweetie." She stepped forward and squeezed Laura's shoulders.

"I doubt the fall would have killed me, but I was seriously thinking about it."

"And Sweeney showed up?"

"He must have seen me out of his kitchen. I'm sure he would have come over even if I hadn't apologized but…" She sighed, flustered. "Anyway, I'm doing better now."

Bil pulled her into a tight embrace that Laura gratefully accepted. "If you're ever feeling like that...you know you can talk to me. I do have a psychology degree."

"You're a sex therapist, Bil," Laura pointed out.

"Which means I know people you could talk to. Okay?"

"Yeah. Thanks." Laura sighed a little and then caught her eye on the calendar hanging by the desk. "Oh uh...what do you think about poker?"

And thus began twice-a-month poker in the big, unused back room of  _The Lucky Coin_ , hands always dealt by Laura McCabe, hands mostly won by Sweeney, seats typically filled with Bil and Nancy and Salim and his boyfriend, and the occasional scruffy fellow that Sweeney roped into it who'd stop coming back once he kept losing cash.

It wasn't the Anubis Casino. And it wasn't a fix-all bandaid on her life, but it  _did_  give her the opportunity to do something she truly enjoyed and reminded her that, on occasion, one had to search a little harder for something to live for. It was easy to slip back into the numbing embrace of the familiar, but it was starting to be just as easy imagining  _doing_  things with her life.

Visiting the modern remake of the Library of Alexandria in Egypt. Climbing a (small) mountain and seeing things from higher than she could ever imagine. Traveling to Ireland where Sweeney promised to show her a good time-which apparently just meant a pub crawl.

But she started small, with poker in the back of a bar in a dying college town.


End file.
